Vijay Balasubramaniyan is the CEO and co-founder of Pindrop. He first joined me on the podcast way back in 2019 for episode 86. I still recommend people listen to that episode. You will learn a lot about voice authentication. In 2021, Vijay returned for episode 193. We now have him three years later and the topic is new.   Deepfakes and voice clones are common topics of discussion now, but Pindrop has been working on this for more than seven years. As a leading voice authentication solution, the team was intent to understand how voice clones could be used to impersonate a trusted user. Fast forward to 2023 and 2024 and they have a commercial product called Pindrop Pulse for deepfake detection.   It is state of the art deepfake detection that is already being used by several large financial institutions. Results from customers deployed in 2023 show a 99% identification rate for voice clones created by the leading synthetic voice providers, 90% for zero-day voice clones from unknown providers, and both metrics come with a sub-1% false positive rate. These stats are essential as you will see lots of claims, but most are identifying a small subset of voice clone types or carry an impractically high false positive rate.  

Joanna Czajka joined me to discuss how her team integrated OpenAI technology into the Opera browser to provide more value to users. She goes into the journey that started with rethinking the browsing experience and being midstream in that process when ChatGPT launched. That led to more rethinking of the experience and the introduction of several generative AI features.

We have 16 generative AI news stories from the first two weeks in February. The evolution of assistants topped the news with ChatGPT, Gemini (aka Google Bard), and Hugging Chat. We break that down in depth and how memory and how generative AI personal assistants are attempting to fill in the gaps where their predecessors fell short. There is more funding news, and a number of new products from Slack, AirBnB, and Otter. We talk about smart glasses, a new product in the category that is not from Apple, and the unglorious history of the category. And, we also do a breakdown of the new USPTO guidelines on AI-assistant patent applications.

Generative AI News Top Stories of the Week 🔦

• OpenAI is Testing a Memory Feature with ChatGPT

• OpenAI Gives ChatGPT a Customizable Memory

• Bard Becomes Gemini, Ultra is Here, and Other Ways Google is Mirroring OpenAI's Strategy

• Google Bard (and Duet and Assistant Mobile App) No More – Gemini Now The Star of Generative AI Show

• Google Warns Gemini Users Automatically Saves Conversations

• Hugging Face Introduces Assistants (GPTs) for HuggingChat

Generative AI Product Garden 🪴

• Frame Smart Glasses from Brilliant Labs Are a Vehicle for an Always-There AI Assistant

• Slack New Generative AI Features Help Navigate Endless Message Flood

• Otter Invites Generative AI to Your Conference Room With New ‘Meeting GenAI’ Chatbot and Tools

• Airbnb CEO Hints at Generative AI Plans Around Acquisition of Adam Cheyer-Founded Startup GamePlanner.AI

• Bumble Adds Generative AI Scam and Catfish Detective to Dating App

Generative AI Funding Fountain 💰⛲️

• Generative AI Video Platform Colossyan Raises $22M

• Jua AI Raises $16M for Climate and Weather Generative AI Model

• Clinical Generative AI Startup Ambience Healthcare Raises $70M

Generative AI in the World 🌎

• Deepfake of Jailed Pakistani Ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan Declares Victory in Election

• No! An AI Cannot Be a Patent Inventor. However, USPTO Adds an Important Caveat

More About GAIN

GAIN is recorded live and streamed via YouTube, LinkedIn, and X on Thursdays or Fridays. You can re-watch each week’s discussion on Voicebot’s YouTube channel.

Here are fifteen generative AI news stories from the past week. Links to the articles are below, or you can watch the GAIN Rundown via YouTube above.

Deepfakes and momentum by Microsoft topped the news this week, while positive moves by Google may have gone unnoticed. Plus, we have another deep dive into new retail-oriented solutions, new funding rounds, and more.

Generative AI News Top Stories of the Week 🔦

• Sex and Politics: Deepfakes Make a Big Splash to Kick Off 2024

• Microsoft Azure AI Users Base Rose by 50%, Half of Fortune 500 Adopt OpenAI Service

Generative AI Product Garden 🪴

• Google Chrome Embeds Generative AI to Write Text, Organize Tabs, and Design Browser Experience

• OpenAI is Rolling Out ‘GPT Mentions’ in ChatGPT to Invoke Custom GPTs

• Meta’s New Code Llama 70B Rivals GitHub Copilot for Generative AI Programming Models

• IBM’s Generative AI Will Scout Soccer Players for Sevilla FC

• Brave Installs Mistral’s Mixtral as Default LLM for Generative AI Browser Assistant Leo

• Google Bard Gets Gemini Pro in 40 Languages and Hits #2 on Popular Benchmark Leaderboard

• Google Adds Imagen2 and GeminiPro To Bard

Generative AI Funding Fountain 💰⛲️

• Indian Generative AI Startup Krutrim Raises $50M to Hit $1B Valuation

• Kore ai Raises $150M to Scale Enterprise Generative AI Platform

Generative AI in Retail & Commerce 🛒

• Shopify Expands Generative AI Features with Synthetic Image Editor for Product Backgrounds and More

• Yelp Rolls Out Generative AI Features to Summarize Business Reviews

• Etsy Launches Generative AI ‘Gift Mode’ to Suggest Personalized Presents

Generative AI in the World 🌎

• Washington State Issues Generative AI Ethics Guidelines

More About GAIN

GAIN is recorded live and streamed via YouTube, LinkedIn, and X on Thursdays or Fridays. You can re-watch each week’s discussion on Voicebot’s YouTube channel.

We have sixteen generative AI news stories again for you this week on the Generative AI News Rundown (GAIN). Watch the video discussion above or click the links below to read the news.

ChatGPT went to college this week as Arizona State University announced a partnership with OpenAI, while Washington State adopts new generative AI guidelines encouraging public school systems to “embrace AI.” Those two stories reflect a very different attitude from what the rise of generative AI faced in education circles in early 2023.

Beyond that, we have a spotlight on Google relating to a new study showing a decline in search results quality and a thesis from Michael Spencer at AI Supremacy

about the company’s last moonshot attempt. Plus, the U.S. FTC is conducting an inquiry into generative AI competition, we have some new funding announcements, and a few product updates. Enjoy!

Generative AI News Top Stories of the Week 🔦

• ChatGPT Goes to College -- ASU Embraces Generative AI But Won't Pay $100M

• The State of Washington Embraces AI for Public Schools

• Google Showcases New Generative AI Education Tools

• US antitrust inquiry targets OpenAI and Anthropic's deals with Big Tech

• Study Shows Decline in Google Search Quality and Reveals Path for Generative AI Adoption

• Google's Last and Final Moonshot is AGI

Generative AI Product Garden 🪴

• Google Chrome Embeds Generative AI to Write Text, Organize Tabs, and Design Browser Experience

• Google's Lumiere Shows More Momentum in AI Text-to-Video Innovation

• New Nightshade Tool Makes Art into ‘Poison’ for Generative AI Image Engines

• OpenAI Signs Up 260 Businesses for Corporate Version of ChatGPT

• Rabbit R1 Generative AI Device Taps Perplexity for Real-Time Answers

Generative AI Funding Fountain 💰⛲️

• ElevenLabs Closes $80M in New Funding and Releases New Voice Library for VO Artists

• Legal Generative AI Assistant Spellbook Raises $20M

Generative AI in Retail & QSR 🛒

• Amazon Pharmacy Embeds Generative AI Models to Enhance Medication Distribution and Stocking

• SoundHound’s Voice AI Starts Taking Phone Orders at 50 Jersey Mike’s Subs

Generative AI in the World 🌎

• OpenAI Bans Custom GPT Dean.bot for Violating Political Generative AI Chatbot Rules

Sixteen generative AI news stories from the past weeks were on the agenda for this week’s edition of GAIN. You can watch the video discussion above or click the links below to read the news.

Meta, Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, ByteDance, Anthropic, Amazon, Walmart, McKinsey, 1x, Will.i.am, and more all had news this week. Eric Schwartz, head writer of Voicebot.ai, joined me to discuss the stories behind the news in generative AI.

Generative AI News Top Stories of the Week 🔦

• Meta to Buy 350k NVIDIA GPUs to Train AI Models Like Llama 3 for AGI

• Generative AI Video Competition Heats Up --ByteDance + TikTok Will Be a Key Player

• Deceptive LLMs, Model Poisoning, and Other Little Known Generative AI Security Risks

Generative AI Product Garden 🪴

• Microsoft Copilot Mimics ChatGPT With New Copilot Pro Service and Customized ‘Copilot GPTs’

• OpenAI (Partially) Lifts Ban on Military Generative AI Projects

• Google Assistant Snips 17 Features as Shift to Generative AI and Bard Continues

• Hundreds of Google Assistant Employees Laid Off as Google Restructures Voice Assistant Around Generative AI

Generative AI Partner Parade 🥁🎉

• Microsoft and Vodafone Ink $1.5B Decade-Long Generative AI Deal

• McKinsey expands alliance with SAP to accelerate generative AI-enabled transformation

• Capgemini and AWS expand strategic collaboration to enable broad enterprise generative AI adoption

Generative AI Funding Fountain 💰⛲️

• Intel Launches Articul8, a New Company Offering a Secure On-prem Generative AI Stack

• AI-Powered Humanoid Robot Startup 1X Raises $100M

Generative AI in Retail 🛒

• Walmart Unveils Generative AI Search and In-Home Refills

• Amazon Rolls Out Generative AI Shopping Assistant

Generative AI in the World 🌎

• OpenAI Shares Strategy to Counter Generative AI Misuse During 2024 Elections

• Will.i.am Starts New SiriusXM Podcast With AI Co-Host Qd.Pi

We highlighted 19 generative AI news stories from early January in the latest episode of GAIN. Watch the video discussion above or read the news through the links below.

CES is the featured segment at the top, with some hits and misses but mostly misses. We also have news from OpenAI with two ChatGPT announcements. That is followed by news from Google, Poe, and a number of funding rounds.

Eric Schwartz, head writer of Voicebot.ai, joined Bret Kinsella to break down the news. 

Generative AI News Featured CES Stories of the Week 🔦

• Rabbit Launches R1 Device for GenAI-Enabled Experiences and Adds $10M in New Funding

• Amazon Alexa Showcases New Generative AI Experiences From Character.AI, Volley, and Splash

• BMW and Amazon Fuse Generative AI and Alexa for New Automotive Voice Assistant

• Getty Completes its Reversal on Generative AI and Launches Generative AI by iStock

• Intuition Robotics Releases ElliQ 3 Robot With Upgraded Hardware Augmented by Generative AI

• McAfee’s New Project Mockingbird Aims to Detect Deepfake Voices

• Microsoft Installs Copilot Key on PC Keyboards for Generative AI Assistant Access

• A Day in the Life With Ballie: An AI Companion Robot for the Home

Generative AI Product Garden 🪴

• OpenAI Launches GPT Store for Custom ChatGPT Apps

• OpenAI's GPT Store to Launch this Week - Don't Get Your Hopes Up

• ChatGPT Team Edition is the Small Business Solution to Complement ChatGPT Enterprise

• OpenAI and Microsoft Sued by New York Times for Copyright Infringement

• Google Bard Code Leaks Point to New Features and a Paid Version with Gemini Ultra

• Google Cloud launches new generative AI tools for retailers

• Quora Gets $75M to Grow Poe into the Web Browser of AI Products

Generative AI Funding Fountain 💰⛲️

• Conversational Generative AI Search Startup Perplexity AI Raises $73.6M

• Clinical Generative AI Assistant Nabla Raises $24M

• Leonardo.AI Raises $31 Million to Fuel Generative AI Art Platform

• Open-Source Generative AI Model Startup Replicate Raises $40M

Google once again made our featured story section with an independent benchmark performance analysis of the Gemini Pro LLM compared with GPT-3.5 and GPT-4. We go into more depth about the benchmarks and how to interpret the results. Channel 1 says it’s positioned to change the news media with its virtual human avatar-delivered stories and Accenture did a lot of generative AI revenue.

Eric Schwartz, head writer of Voicebot.ai, joined me to break down the news this week and offer additional context behind the headlines.

Generative AI News Featured Stories of the Week 🔦

• CMU Study Shows Gemini Pro Trails GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 in Performance Benchmarks

• Accenture Had $450M in Gen AI Projects Last Quarter, New Deal with McDonald's, But...

• Channel 1 Will Use Generative AI to Hyper-personalize Your News. An AI-Enabled CNN?

Generative AI Funding Fountain 💰⛲️

• Generative AI Legal and Professional Services Startup Harvey Raises $80M

• OpenAI Startup Fund’s Converge Accelerator Starts Accepting New Applicants

• Anthropic is in Talks for another $750 Million in Funding and a 4.5x Rise in Valuation (we didn’t get to it in the show, but it is a big funding rumor)

Generative AI Product Garden 🪴

• OpenAI Grants Board Veto Power and Forms in Generative AI Safety Advisory Group

• Stability AI Brings Out Image-to-3D and a New Membership Model

• Instagram Rolls Out Generative AI Background Image Editing Tool in the U.S.

• Microsoft Copilot Adds Generative AI Music Engine

• Microsoft and TomTom Unveil Generative AI Car Voice Assistant

• Cerence and Nvidia Debut Automotive Large Language Model CaLLM to Power New Generative AI Features

Generative AI in the World 🌏

• Google Cloud Will Serve Generative AI to McDonald’s Restaurants

• Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan Addresses Supporters from Jail Via Deepfake Generative AI Voice Clone [Report]

Google ranks as our featured story section with the launch of the Gemini LLM and the new AI Studio. Mistral and Microsoft were other big newsmakers with the introduction of small LLMs this past week. And there is a lot on the new product and funding front, the EU AI Act, an OpenAI and news media tie-up, and a lot more.

Generative AI News Featured Stories of the Week 🔦

• Google's Gemini LLM Arrives Next Week and It May Just Outperform GPT-4 (sort of)

• Google Gemini Looks Amazing in Video Demos, But Marketing Makes Another Unforced Error

• Google Launches AI Studio for Easy Access to Gemini Generative AI Model

Generative AI Funding Fountain 💰⛲️

• Mistral Has $415M in New Funding, a Big Valuation, and a New LLM to Challenge GPT-4

• SoundHound AI Acquires Restaurant Voice AI Startup SYNQ3

• Speech AI Startup AssemblyAI Raises $50M

• Indian Generative AI Startup Sarvam AI Raises $41M

• Business Generative AI Startup Kognitos Raises $20M

• Generative AI Tutoring Startup Kyron Learning Raises $14.6M

• Generative AI Video Startup HeyGen Raises $5.6M

Generative AI Product Garden 🪴

• Microsoft's New Phi-2 Small LLM Shows Strong Benchmark Performance

• Elon Musk Releases Generative AI Chatbot Grok on X

• Snapchat Adds Generative AI Images to Snapchat+ Subscription Service

• Meta Expands Generative AI Features to Social Media and Teases Invisible Watermarking

• Getty Images and Runway Team Up to Build Generative AI Video Model for Businesses That Won’t Spark Lawsuits

Generative AI in the World 🌏

• Google Cloud Will Serve Generative AI to McDonald’s Restaurants

• Mastercard Unveils Generative AI Retail Tool Shopping Muse

• The EU AI Act is Approved but It's Not Done Yet - A Breakdown of Some Interesting Details

• OpenAI Strikes ChatGPT Content Deal with Axel Springer, Publisher of Politico, Insider, and BILD

More About GAIN

GAIN is recorded live and streamed via YouTube and LinkedIn on Thursdays. You can re-watch each week’s discussion on Voicebot’s YouTube channel.

To say November closed with a flurry of generative AI news is a severe understatement. OpenAI almost melted down pulled it back together, and then we had a birthday for a little product called ChatGPT. Nearly every OpenAI competitor attempted to seize on the company’s turmoil and ramped up their visibility for sales, product announcements, or fundraising. Amazon released a slate of new announcements at the AWS re-invent conference. NVIDIA’s quarterly revenue looks like a vertical line. And that’s not all.

Eric Schwartz, head writer of Voicebot.ai, and I break down the news once again this week and hopefully offer a little perspective on the story behind the story.

Generative AI News

Featured Stories of the Week 🔦

• ChatGPT Turns 1 - The chat assistant became the catalyst for a year of change.

  • ChatGPT Turns 1 - Timeline of a Remarkable First Year and its Impact on Industry and Society

• Other OpenAI News - The company was in the news for a few other reasons, too!

  • Timeline of the 106-Hour OpenAI Saga, Altman Will Return, New Board Formed

  • OpenAI Agrees in Principle to Sam Altman's Return as CEO, But this is Far From Over

  • What is OpenAI's Q*? How Aligned Incentives are Fueling a Questionable Narrative.

  • Doesn't OpenAI Board Member Adam D'Angelo Have a Conflict of Interest in Ongoing Dispute?

• Generative AI winners and losers of the week

Generative AI Funding Fountain 💰⛲️

• NVIDIA Blows Out Revenue Figures as Generative AI Drives Growth

• Generative AI Startup AI21 Labs Adds $53M to Earlier $155M Funding Round

• Voice AI for Kids Startup SoapBox Labs Acquired by Edtech Firm Curriculum Associates

• Generative AI Video Startup Pika Raises $35M

• Stable Diffusion Synthetic Media Hub Civitai Raises $5.1M

Generative AI Product Garden 🪴

• Anthropic's Claude 2.1 LLM Has a 200K Context Window, API Tools and Poses a New Challenge to OpenAI

• Inflection AI Announces Inflection-2 LLM with Significantly Improved Performance

• What is Amazon PartyRock and How Did AWS Launch a Marketplace Before OpenAI's GPTs?

• Amazon Q is a Generative AI Copilot for Business Untethered from Enterprise Apps

• AWS Augments Amazon Bedrock With New Features, Titan Models, Agents

• Amazon Infuses AWS Services With Generative AI

• Stable Video Diffusion Likely to Kick Off a Wave of Text-to-Video Services

• Stability AI: Challenges and Outlook for the One-Time King of Text-to-Image Generation (for paid subscribers)

• Stability AI Explores Sale as Investor Urges CEO to Resign

More About GAIN

GAIN is recorded live and streamed via YouTube and LinkedIn on Thursdays. You can re-watch each week’s discussion on Voicebot’s YouTube channel. Please join us live next week on YouTube or LinkedIn at 11 a.m. ET. Also, please participate in the live show by commenting, and we are likely to give you a shoutout and may even show your comment on screen.

Today, we have a special episode that was recorded in the midst of the OpenAI management saga where CEO Sam Altman was fired and then hired back. While the management issues have been updated, I thought you might like a window into how developers were thinking about this incident and how the harm in reputation and relationships won't soon be resolved.   Included in the panel are OpenAI developer ambassador Bram Adams, long-time OpenAI advocate and developer Bakz T. Future, GPT innovator Leslie Pound, and my Voicebot colleague Eric Schwartz.   We break down what was happening but really focus on the impact on developers. I think you will find the discussion insightful.